Suffolk Marine Pioneer Values and Priorities Workshop Delivery

Project Description

The Suffolk marine pioneer (the pioneer) was established by Defra to test the application of a natural capital approach in practice. In doing so, the pioneer’s purpose is to inform the implementation and iteration of the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan. The pioneer is delivering this objective by examining how the implementation of natural capital thinking applies locally – on the basis that any intervention to improve the state of the environment will affect people living, working and recreating in that environment. The pioneer is programme managed by the Marine Management Organisation but is hosted by the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The geographic focus of the pioneer’s interest is on the Deben Estuary with a specific focus on saltmarsh as the environmental asset of concern.

The pioneer is broadly following the framework for natural capital delivery laid out by the Natural Capital Committee in 2017. Deviation from this framework was inevitable not least because the framework wasn’t written with the marine/coastal space in mind. Regardless, the focus of the pioneer is to deliver recommendations on a practicable natural capital approach, rather than to deliver the framework. The pioneer is therefore learning through progress, as such deviation from the framework isn’t problematic. One can summarise the intent of the framework into 5 steps: Baseline – Evidence – Priorities – Plan – Implementation.

The pioneer is seeking to deliver a ‘values and priorities’ participatory workshop(s) for business, community and public sector representatives (the stakeholders) who have specific interest in the Deben Estuary.

The intention of this activity is to understand what natural capital benefits, derived from the Deben estuary, stakeholders’ value. It is hoped that this information will supplement the quantitative natural capital evidence base collected to date. It is expected that the priorities of the stakeholders can be made apparent through tabling a series of realistic trade-offs between those derived benefits. It is desirable that the trade-offs incorporate the quantitative natural capital evidence relating to the Deben saltmarsh. The pioneer has been tasked with reporting the successes and failures of implementing a natural capital approach. Fulfilling this request will permit the pioneer to begin to consider the ‘priorities’ stage of the approach and to evaluate opportunities and blockers in terms of progress and delivery of a natural capital approach.